The Egyptian Royals Collection

by Michelle Moran

  “Inform you that Octavian is resigning from office.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  27–26 BC

  BY THE next day, there was no one in Rome who hadn’t heard the news. Thousands of people flocked to the Senate, where Octavian had promised to relinquish his powers and resign his office in its entirety. Soldiers kept peace in the courtyard outside, where the men looked solemn and a few hysterical women were beating their chests. We stood around the open doors of the Senate, where a space had been cleared for us, and I heard Octavia say, “Make way!”

  Vitruvius appeared with a young man at his side, and for a terrible moment I wondered if he had taken a new apprentice.

  “Alexander, Selene. My son Lucius,” he said.

  Lucius gave me a dazzling smile. He was shorter than my brother, but, like Octavian, he had small heels on his bright golden sandals. When I extended my hand, his kiss lingered. “So you are the one who is bearing my burden,” he said gratefully. “Without you, I would be chained to ink drawings and cement.”

  I laughed. “It’s a pleasant burden,” I told him.

  “Well, with someone as pretty as you watching over them, the builders must be begging for more work.”

  Marcellus laughed at this empty flattery, but Lucius just turned his attention to my brother. “Alexander—”

  “There he is,” Marcellus interrupted, pointing through the open doors into the Senate. “He’s taken the podium!”

  Octavian was dressed in a plain white toga, and nothing on his person gave any indication that he was Caesar. He was flanked by Juba and Agrippa, and behind them stood the Praetorian Guard. Although Alexander and Lucius were whispering, everyone else in the courtyard was silent.

  I had asked Julia whether her father was doing this because of the Red Eagle, but she’d only laughed. “There’s nothing he does without planning it first. He’s probably considered this for months. Years.”

  “Then you don’t think he plans on giving up his power?”

  Julia had given me a wearied look. “No,” she’d said with practiced cynicism. “He would only be doing this if he thought it would increase it.”

  I didn’t see how resigning his office would make Octavian more powerful than he already was. But as he rose to speak, the senators began to revolt. They shouted for him to remain, citing the civil wars that had ripped Rome apart before he had taken power and swearing that this would happen again if he refused. Men pumped their fists in the air, cursing like sailors from Ostia. But Octavian raised his arms and the room fell silent.

  “It is time,” he shouted, “for me to give up the reins of power and return the Republic to the citizens of Rome.”

  “He can’t mean that!” Marcellus exclaimed.

  Octavia twisted her belt strings nervously in her hands. But Livia was smiling, and I thought, Julia’s right. He doesn’t mean that.

  “I believe we all remember my adoptive father, Gaius Julius Caesar, who stood before you only seventeen years ago in the purple robes of imperium, with a laurel wreath on his head. Notice that I come before you with none of the trappings of Caesar. I am a humble servant, one who remembers his history well.”

  “Then you remember the civil wars!” a senator shouted.

  “Yes,” Octavian conceded. “But I also remember my father,” he said harshly, “stabbed to death for attempting to build an empire!”

  There was pandemonium in the Senate. A young boy in the doorway repeated Octavian’s words for those standing in the courtyard, and the frenzy outside soon matched the turmoil within.

  Octavian raised his arms, and again the senators fell silent. “Having done what I can for Rome,” he went on, “I now lay down my office in its entirety. To you, the esteemed senators of Rome, I return authority over the army, the laws, and the provinces. You are free to govern not just those territories which you entrusted to me, but also those which I fought and won for you.”

  Seneca leapt violently from his seat. “This is not acceptable!” he cried. “You fought against Antony, you crushed the kingdom of Egypt, you rebuilt our city and sent forces to police our dangerous hills. You took a republic in chaos and made it into an empire, and we will never allow you to resign!”

  Vitruvius turned to Octavia. “Is he paying Seneca?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “He doesn’t have to pay him,” Livia snapped. “The senators don’t want a return to civil war. Without Octavian’s leadership, the clans will go back to fighting and tearing each other apart like wolves.”

  “Let us take a vote!” one of the senators shouted.

  There were hums of approval, and Octavian raised his hands. “Then I submit my departure to you,” he acquiesced.

  Seneca addressed the chamber. “We are voting on the future of Rome,” he said. “There is not a man here who doesn’t know what Octavian has done for this city, for this empire, for all of you! Do you want to return to the days of anarchy? The days of civil war?” he threatened. “Octavian is not another Julius Caesar. He is something different. This is something different. We can share power, and for the first time in the history of Rome, create a joint way of ruling. So let us give him a name in honor of his difference, of his victories, and his sacrifices to build a better Rome. Let us call Gaius Octavius … Augustus.”

  There was a roar of approval from the senators, and only a few men remained seated on the benches. From the platform, Octavian bent his head humbly.

  Livia looked toward the sky. “He’s done it,” she murmured. The gods seemed to have been watching over her. “He’s made himself emperor.”

  The senators resumed their seats, and only Seneca remained standing. “As for leaving office,” he continued, and a chorus of protests met the words, “we shall have a vote as to whether Augustus shall be allowed to resign.”

  It was a grand piece of theater, and when all of it was done, we watched as Octavian reluctantly accepted control over the provinces of Syria, Iberia, and Gaul for ten years. Egypt would still belong to him, and the command of more than twenty legions was his as well. But the rest of the provinces and their comparatively small legions would be governed by the Senate, and they would be allowed to choose which praetors would oversee them. The celebration in the streets that followed was as loud and wild as any military Triumph. It was as if Augustus were coming home again victorious from battle.

  In Octavia’s villa that afternoon, we prepared for a celebratory feast. Gallia arranged my curls into a loose bun and slipped pearl-tipped pins into my hair. I imagined how beautiful the pins would have looked with my mother’s necklace, then commanded myself not to think about it. Gallia’s freedom and happiness was worth any number of necklaces, and no necklace could bring my mother back. Gallia swept the slightest hint of malachite across my lids, then allowed me to wear a pair of pearl earrings Julia had given to me for Saturnalia. When Alexander saw me, he hummed with appreciation.

  “Be careful,” he teased. “All of those senators will be here tonight, and they’re probably tired of looking at Octavian.”

  “Did you even hear what was happening?” I asked critically. “Or did you spend the entire time talking with Lucius?”

  “Of course I heard! He’s kept his power for ten more years, and we’re all to call him Augustus.”

  I looked up at Gallia. “Is it true? Will even Octavia call him that?”

  “Yes. Romans are always changing their names.”

  I thought of the mausoleum that Vitruvius had already started to build, and all of the inscriptions that would have to be changed.

  “So do you think he planned this?” Alexander asked, seating himself next to me at the mirror while Gallia perfumed my neck.

  “Julia says he did.”

  “So does Lucius.”

  “And what does Lucius know?” I demanded. “He lives with his aunt.”

  My brother raised his brows. “Not anymore. He’s been talking to his father. Octavia has said he can come and liv
e here.”

  “He’s quite the charmer.”

  We sat together in silence for a moment. Then I glanced in the mirror. “Do you really think I look pretty?”

  “Enough to turn every head in the triclinium,” he promised. “And me?”

  I laughed. “You’re always handsome. And what does it matter? There’s no one you have your eye on.”

  He smiled uneasily.

  “Is there?”

  “No,” he confirmed. “It would be foolish to begin anything. We don’t know what Octavian—Augustus—has in mind for us. He could give you to a senator as old as Zeus and me to a witch like Livia.”

  “Don’t say that,” I whispered.

  “It’s true. That’s why Lucius won’t stay with his aunt. She thinks she’s found a wife for him. Some horrible hag with a villa in Capri. And he’s only a year older than we are.”

  “When will he come here?” I asked.

  “This evening.”

  “So quickly?”

  “The more time he spends with her,” my brother said, “the more time she has to bring women home to meet him.”

  “But Vitruvius has to approve any marriage.”

  “Lucius says Vitruvius trusts his sister’s judgment.”

  “So does he think he’ll escape marriage by coming here?”

  “Perhaps. Not every man marries, you know. Maecenas didn’t have a wife for years. And Vergil’s in his forties and has never married.”

  “They are poets, Alexander. And probably Ganymedes.”

  But my brother didn’t seem bothered by the reference to the handsome Trojan boy who was abducted to Olympus to become the lover of Zeus. He simply shrugged. “Maybe.”

  For the rest of the night, I studied Alexander. Even when Marcellus poured my wine and complimented me on my earrings, I watched the way my brother talked, how Julia laughed at everything he said, and how Alexander’s eyes never left Lucius. The only time their gazes were parted was when Augustus stood from his couch in the triclinium and declared that tomorrow, another startling announcement would be made.

  Julia shook her head. “If my father weren’t consul, he’d be an actor.”

  “Is there a difference?” Marcellus asked, and I detected a note of bitterness in his voice. He said he had forgiven his uncle for accusing him of treachery, but I wondered whether he could forgive him for sending guards to pull him out of the fornices.

  “What do you think he’ll announce?” I whispered. I looked to Julia and Marcellus, but it was Lucius who spoke.

  “War.” When everyone turned to him, he added, “My father says that Augustus wants a new triumphal arch. When he was asked what it was for, he said his continued battle against Gaul, and war in Asturias and Cantabria.”

  “Vitruvius never told this to me,” I said, hurt.

  “Augustus only asked for the arch this morning.”

  “There is rebellion in Gaul,” Marcellus conceded. “And the Asturians have gold, while the Cantabri have iron. They’d be valuable territories. Not to mention that Cantabria is the last independent nation in Iberia that isn’t Roman.”

  We all looked at Octavian, bundled in his warmest winter toga and fur-trimmed cloak despite the mildness of March’s weather.

  “If he goes to war,” Julia confided, “I only hope he takes Livia along with him.”

  On the Ides of April, Julia got her wish. Not only was Livia going to travel with Augustus on the campaign to put down the Gallic rebellion, so were Juba, Tiberius, and Marcellus.

  “You can’t go!” Julia said desperately, watching Marcellus pack for what might be two, even three years abroad.

  He laughed. “It’s only Gaul. Do you know how many legions have been there before?”

  “But anything could happen. Why risk yourself like this?”

  “Because someday, if this is ever my empire, I will have to go to war alone. Without your father, or his generals, or Juba.”

  “And Agrippa?” Lucius asked. He sat next to my brother on Marcellus’s couch, where a heavy chest was being filled with sandals and clothes. Since he had moved into the villa and started attending the ludus with us, he and my brother had become inseparable, working on their poetry together, gambling at dice, even betting on the same horses in the Circus. I didn’t understand my brother’s fascination with him, yet Julia found the pair of them irresistible, laughing like a hyena whenever the three of them were together.

  “He’ll stay behind to govern Rome,” Marcellus said.

  My brother started. “But isn’t he—?”

  “The architect of my father’s wars? Yes,” Marcellus replied. “But someone needs to watch over the Senate.”

  “Agrippa went to Egypt,” I pointed out.

  “And every man who wanted Rome for himself was on the battlefield. Now they’re dressed in togae praetexta and call themselves senators.”

  I was impressed by Marcellus’s eagerness. Tomorrow he would be riding out with five legions to a war from which he might never return, yet there was only excitement in his voice. I thought of the dangers he would face and the painted Gallic fighters hiding in the thickly wooded passes. I was sure that Isis would never be so cruel as to abandon someone so young and filled with promise. But then why had she abandoned Ptolemy and Caesarion? Where had she been when Antyllus was murdered at the base of Caesar’s statue and my parents lost their kingdom to a thin, weak sapling of a man?

  There were tears from nearly everyone the next morning. Julia clung to Marcellus and wept. Then he whispered something in her ear and tenderly wiped away her tears with his finger. When he came to me, he didn’t whisper anything. I was ashamed to admit how afraid I was that he would never come back. But I refused to weep like a child.

  “What, no tears?” Juba asked. “He’s about to fight the fearsome Gauls and Cantabri.”

  “Isis will watch over him,” I said firmly.

  “Perhaps she can use her wings to fly us to Gaul.” Tiberius laughed. “Then we won’t have to worry about barbarians hiding in the trees along the road.”

  “Enough,” Livia said, and for once I was thankful to her. I could feel the sting of tears in my eyes, and Juba watched me curiously while Marcellus straddled his favorite horse. The Campus Martius was filled with onlookers waiting for the soldiers to begin their march so they could scatter laurel branches in their path.

  I was standing close enough to the horses to overhear Livia whisper to Tiberius, “I’ll be in the carriage. If anything happens, you know what to do.”

  “Of course,” he said curtly.

  “And you won’t be fool enough to stand in the way of any arrow meant for Marcellus. If the gods wish him to die, you must not challenge their will.”

  Tiberius looked at me and saw that I was eavesdropping. I looked away.

  Livia walked to Octavia and kissed her sister-in-law good-bye.

  “A safe journey,” Octavia said without conviction.

  Livia smiled. “Don’t worry for Marcellus. He’s a capable man. And, of course, I’ll watch over him like a son.”

  I almost protested, but Octavia had wept all morning, and now the tears came afresh. From atop his horse, Marcellus passed her a small square of linen, which she pressed to her nose.

  “It’s nothing, Mother. A short fight and then it’s over.”

  Octavia nodded, pretending to believe him, and as the legions moved out, Alexander put his arm around my waist.

  “He’ll be back,” he promised.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Juba and Agrippa have trained him.”

  I watched Juba mount his horse. He had saved both Gallia and me from death, and I felt certain he would do the same for Marcellus. Women whistled in his direction, raising their tunics above the knee, and I suspected that some of them were lupae. “Why are they interested in him?” I demanded.

  “Because he’s handsome,” Alexander said.

  I gave him a look.

  “It’s true,” he admitted. �
��You may not like him, but the women of Rome obviously do.”

  I supposed that Juba was somewhat attractive. His hair was thick and long, a rich color as dark as his eyes. His muscled thighs were exposed on the horse, and I imagined that his chest was just as handsomely sculpted. But he would never have the same easy laugh as Marcellus. There was no one like Marcellus, and as I blinked back my tears, my brother patted my shoulder.

  “Augustus doesn’t want anything to happen to him. Marcellus won’t see any of the dangerous fighting. But it’ll be lonely in the ludus,” he said understandingly.

  “And the Circus. And the triclinium.”

  “At least you have Julia.”

  She was my only consolation as the long months passed and Saturnalia approached without any hint that the soldiers would be returning home. We wandered the holiday markets together with Gallia and seven of the Praetorian Guards, but it was strange without Marcellus’s constant chatter and with no one to look pretty for.

  “When Marcellus returns home,” Julia said, pausing above a wide selection of wigs, “perhaps I’ll be blond.”

  I laughed. “What? Like a lupa?”

  “No, like Gallia! Look how beautiful she is.”

  “Because I am light,” she told Julia. “With blue eyes and pale skin. You are a Roman. Dark is your color.”

  Julia pouted. “Then how will I surprise him?”

  I glanced in the mirror above the shopkeeper’s head, wondering whether I would look good with golden hair. But the thought of wearing a slave girl’s shorn-off tresses turned my stomach. Marcellus is not for me, I thought firmly. If he comes home safe, it will be to Julia. But I couldn’t help feeling just a little triumphant that I would have something more than a new wig to show him when he returned. The construction of the theater had already begun near Octavia’s portico, and when given a choice of designs, I had asked Vitruvius to build something like the Circus, with three stories of arches veneered in white travertine and topped by Corinthian columns. He was allowing me to sketch every mosaic and all of the important friezes inside. I picked up one of the shopkeeper’s statuettes and smiled to myself.